Richie Havens: Paying homage to a man who let us all be a part of his 'becoming'

View full sizeRichie Havens, who burst on the scene for most as the opening act -- for almost three hours -- at Woodstock in 1969, is gone at the age of 72. But the idealism and hopes he and his music spawned live on.AP file

Recollection and reality are antithetical words, with nothing more in common than both start with an "r."

That’s just how it is. Usually, anyway. Sometimes, the recall of what was is a match for what is.

That would be Richie Havens, the iconic singer-songwriter-guitarist who died of a heart attack on Monday at the age of 72.

By all accounts, Havens really was the man a generation perceived him to be after his three-hour opening set at Woodstock in 1969. It ended up being that long because the other artists who were scheduled to perform had trouble getting to the farm in upstate New York. But because of that, a legend was born.

"When I was about 17," Havens told The Plain Dealer’s John Soeder in an interview to preview a PlayhouseSquare performance in 2008, "I said, ‘Nothing’s finished in this world. So where am I?’ And the great becoming came through my mind.

"I’m in the great becoming!" Havens said. "That’s all we’ve ever done. We’ve become man enough to step forward across a line, or woman enough to fight her own battles and win.

"To me, that’s the wonderful part – I get to see the great becoming," he said.

In 1969, when Woodstock happened, I hadn’t yet turned 13 years old. My ideas of the world were a bit confused. My father was in Vietnam for his second yearlong tour as a career Army helicopter pilot. I’d spent most of my life either on Army posts or on the family cattle ranch in East Texas. The word sheltered comes to mind.

I couldn’t understand why some people would spit on Dad – and I saw it time and time again – when in my mind he was John Wayne in a helicopter. I had friends whose fathers didn’t come back, but the ones who did often led backyard volleyball games, took us camping, led our Scout troops and coached our baseball teams. Life as an Army brat – aside from the fact that your father could end up dead – was oddly innocent and idyllic.

Then music intervened, and I learned to look beyond the Sam Browne brassards and white hats of the MPs who guarded the gates of Fort Rucker, Ala., Fort Benning, Ga., Fort Greeley, Alaska, and other places we called home.

I remember in particular hearing recordings of Havens’ improvised song "Freedom," based on the spiritual "Motherless Child," and thinking, "This is how to touch people. This is how to care. This is the world of hope and love that they’re talking about."

The song is everything Havens was as a musician – featuring a driving, percussive acoustic guitar accompanying a voice that that was as insistent as an alarm clock at 5 a.m. And like the clock, it was part of an awakening. In me, in a generation.

Havens has a long list of awards – all richly deserved – including the National Music Council’s American Eagle Award. The award, presented in 2003, noted Havens’ place in the heritage of American music and championed him as "a rare and inspiring voice of eloquence, integrity and social responsibility."

Ksenia Roshchakovsky, who runs marketing and public relations for Cain Park, recalled meeting him during three of his concerts at the Cleveland Heights amphitheater – in 1995 as a solo act, in 1996 with Leo Kottke in 1996 and with Arlo Guthrie in 2009.

"My impression upon meeting him is that he was exactly what you would expect him to be," said Roshchakovsky. "He was classy, peaceful, spiritual, kind and loving. He wasn’t playing the image; he was how he was portrayed."

And as you might expect, Havens was a man of the people. "He really wanted to hear what people had to say," said

Roshchakovsky. "We’ve had some artists who we’ve been instructed to not look into their eyes, which is odd."

Havens was the opposite.

"He really enjoyed people," she said. "He loved meeting with fans. There are some who do it because it’s smart on their part for their careers, but he really enjoyed it.

"These hippie artists from the ’60s and ’70s, they’re all of that same ilk," said Roshchakovsky. "They were doing this because they love doing it, and they love sharing it."

But most telling – and the way I think of Havens – is how Roshchakovsky described her own feelings when she learned of Havens’ death.

"We were all very sad to hear that he was gone," she said, "because he was more than a great performer. I can’t say that he WAS my friend, but it FELT like he was my friend."

So long, friend. At last you’ve found the freedom you’ve sung about, hoped for, championed and dreamed of for all of us.

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